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ENVS 461: The History and Politics of Ecology (Rev. C1) Report a Broken Link

Environmental Studies 461: The History and Politics of Ecology is a senior level undergraduate course designed to acquaint you with ecological theory and how that knowledge has been applied to environmental issues.


Required Readings

Unit 2

Intellectual Toolkit
University of California Museum of Paleontology. 2010. “What is science” and “How science works.” In Understanding science 101.
Retrieved January 3, 2010 from Website
Forsyth, Tim. (2003). Chapter 2: Environmental science and myths. In Critical political ecology: The politics of environmental science (pp. 24-55, 280-310). London and New York: Routledge.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. (1992). Building two-way streets: The case of feminism and science. NWSA Journal, 4(3), 336-349.

Unit 3

The History of Ecological Models, Part I
O’Neill, Robert V. (Dec 2001). Is it time to bury the ecosystem concept? (With full military honors, of course!) Ecology, 82(12), 3275-3284.
Tansley, A. G. (July 1935). The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms. Ecology, 16(3), 284-307.
Gleason, Henry A. (January 1926). The individualistic concept of the plant association. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 53(1), 7-26.
Whittaker, Robert H. A. (1953). Consideration of climax theory: The climax as a population and pattern. Ecological Monographs, 23(1), 41-78.

Unit 4

The History of Ecological Models, Part II
Golley, F. B. (1993). Chapter 3: The Lake as Microcosm. In A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More than the Sum of the Parts. New York: Vail-Ballou Press, pp. 35–60.
Cook, R. E. (Oct 1977). Raymond Lindeman and the trophic-dynamic concept in ecology. Science, 198(4312), 22-26.
Odum, E. (1993). Energetics. In Ecology and Our Endangered Life-Support Systems, 2nd ed., Sunderland, MA: Sinauer, pp. 68–109.
Readings Needed for Assignment 1 (Critical Analysis)
A.G. T. [Arthur Tansley] (1916). The Development of Vegetation. The Journal of Ecology, 4(3/4), 198-204.
Gleason, Henry A. (1917). The Structure and Development of the Plant Association. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 44(10), 463-481.
Shelford, Victor. (1931). Some Concepts of Bioecology. Ecology, 12(3), 455-467.
Lindeman, Raymond. (1942). The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology. Ecology, 23(4), 399-417.

Unit 5

History of Ecological Models, Part III
McCoy, E. D. and Schrader-Frechette, Kristin. (1992). Community geology, scale, and the instability of the stability concept. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992(1), 184-199.
Gleick, James. (1987). The Butterfly Effect, in Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books, pp. 9–31.
Gleick, James. (1987). Revolution, in Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books, pp. 33–57.

Unit 6

History of Ecological Models Part IV
Shaver, Gaius R. (2005). Spatial heterogeneity: Past, present, future. In Lovett, G.M.; Jones, C.G.; Turner, M.G.; Weathers, K.C. (Eds.) Ecosystem Function in Heterogeneous Landscapes (pp. 443-449). New York: Springer.
Chapin III, F. Stuart; Matson, Pamela A.; and Mooney, Harold A. (2002). Landscape Heterogeneity in Ecosystem Dynamics. In Chapin, III, F. Stuart, Matson, Pamela A.; and Vitousek, Peter M. (Eds.) Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology (pp. 305-331). New York: Springer.
Wu, Jianguo and Loucks, Orie L. (Dec 1995). From balance of nature to hierarchical patch dynamics. Quarterly Review of Biology, 70(4), 439-466.
Kotliar, Natasha B. and Wiens, John A. (Nov 1990). Multiple scales of patchiness and patch structure: A hierarchical framework for the study. Oikos, 59(2), 253-260.

Unit 7

Politics, Ethics, and Social Production of Nature
Rubinoff, L. (1997). Politics, ethics, and ecology: Confronting the tragedy of the commons. In A. Wellington, A. Greenbaum, and W. Cragg, (Eds.) Canadian Issues in Environmental Ethics. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, pp. 133–152.
Fairhead, J. and Leach, M. (2000). Reproducing locality: A critical exploration of the relationship between natural science, social science, and policy in West African ecological problems. In V. Broch-Due and R. A. Schroeder (Eds.) Producing Nature and Poverty in Africa. Stockholm: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, pp. 173–197.
Hill, S. and Coombes, B. (2004). The Limits to participation in dis-equilibrium ecology: Maori involvement in habitat restoration. Science as Culture, 13(1), 37-73.

Unit 8

Case Studies of Environmental Problems, Part I
Neumann, Roderick P. (2004). Nature-State-Territory: Toward a Critical Theorization of Conservation Practices. In Richard Peet and Michael Watts (Eds.) Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, 2nd ed. (pp. 195-217). London and New York: Routledge.
Vandermeer, J. and Perfecto, I. (1998). The political ecology of deforestation in Central America. Science as Culture, 7(4), 519-555.

Unit 9

Case Studies of Environmental Problems, Part II
Mansfield, Becky and Haas, Johanna. (2006). Scale framing of scientific uncertainty in controversy over the endangered Steller Sea Lion. Environmental Politics, 15(1), 78-94.
Pearce, F. (Feb 2005). Climate change: Menace or myth? New Scientist, 185(2486), unpaginated.
Union of Concerned Scientists. (2007). Smoke, mirrors, and hot air: How ExxonMobil uses big tobacco’s tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate science. Cambridge, MA: UCS, unpaginated.

Supplementary Readings

All Units
Introduction
For those without a background in science, in the social sciences, or in environmental studies, the following titles in each of the three categories may be of help in understanding terms and concepts in the course. If you need more information on ecology, you may wish to search for other material and talk to your tutor.
Note that this is a list only - to read the references provided here you will have to search the AU Library, or other collections or search engines at your disposal.
Science

Begon, M., Harper, J. L., & Townsend, C. R. (1990). Ecology: Individuals, Populations and Communities. Boston: Blackwell Scientific.

Bramwell, A. (1989). Ecology in the 20th Century: A History. London: Yale University Press.
Egerton, F. N. (1977). History of American Ecology. New York: Arno Press.
Forman, R. T. T. (1995). Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Golley, F. B. (1993). A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More Than the Sum of the Parts. London: Yale University Press.
Hagen, J. B. (1992). An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Kingsland, S. E. (1985). Modelling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Levin, S. A. (1992). The problem of pattern and scale in ecology: the Robert H. MacArthur award lecture. Ecology 73(6), 1943-1967.
McIntosh, R. P. (1975). H. A. Gleason—“individualistic ecologist” 1882-1975: His contributions to ecological theory. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 102(5), pp. 253-273.
Margalef, R. (1963). On certain unifying principles in ecology. The American Naturalist, 97(897), 357-374.
Mitman, G. (1992). The State of Nature: Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought, 1900-1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Odum, E. P. (1983). Basic Ecology. Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing.
Odum, E. P. (1993). Ecology and Our Endangered Life-Support Systems. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates.
Prigogine, I. (1996). The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature. New York: The Free Press.
Turchin, Peter (1993). Chaos and stability in rodent population dynamics: Evidence from non-linear time-series analysis. Oikos 68(1), 167-172.
Worster, D. (1996). Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wu, Jianguo and Li, Harbin (2006). Chapter 2: Concepts of scale and scaling. In Wu, J.; Li, H.; and Loucks, O. L. (Eds.) Scaling and Uncertainty in Ecology: Methods and Applications, 17-44. Dordrecht: Springer.
Social Science
Haila, Y. (1998). Political undercurrents of modern ecology. Science as Culture, 7(4), 465-491.
Harvey, M. (2007). Citizens in defence of something called science. Science as Culture, 16(1), 31-48.
Kinchy, A. J. (2006). On the borders of post-war ecology: Struggles over the ecological society of America’s preservation committee, 1917-1946. Science as Culture, 15(1), 23-44.
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Castree, N. (2003). Environmental issues: Relational ontologies and hybrid politics. Progress in Human Geography, 27(2), pp. 203-211.
Demeritt, D. (2002). What is the ‘social construction of nature?’ A typology and sympathetic critique. Progress in Human Geography, 26(6), pp. 767-790.
Demeritt, D. (1998). Science, social constructivism and nature. In Braun, B. and Castree, N. (Eds.) Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium, London: Routledge, pp.173-193.
Escobar, A. (1999). After nature: Steps to an antiessentialist political ecology. Current Anthropology, 40(1), pp. 1-30.
Fairchild, H. H. (1991). Scientific racism: The cloak of objectivity. Journal of Social Issues, 47(3), pp. 101-115.
Proctor, J. D. (1998). The social construction of nature: Relativist accusations, pragmatists and critical realist responses. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 88(3), pp. 352-376.
Environmental Studies
Bocking, S. (Ed.) (2000). Biodiversity in Canada: Ecology, Ideas, and Action. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.
Cohen, S., Demeritt, D., Robinson, J., & Rothman, D. (1998). Climate change and sustainable development: towards dialogue. Global Environmental Change, 8(4), 341-371.
Escobar, A. (1998). Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity, conservation, and the political ecology of social movements. Journal of Political Ecology, 5, 53-82.
Knudtson, P., & Suzuki, D. (1992). Wisdom of the Elders: Native and Scientific Ways of Knowing about Nature. New York: Bantam Books.
McKenzie, J. I. (2002). Environmental Politics in Canada: Managing the Commons Into the Twenty-First Century. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.
Peet, R., & Watts, M. (Eds.) (2004). Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, 2nd Ed. London: Routledge.
Suzuki, D. (2003). The David Suzuki Reader: A Lifetime of Ideas from a Leading Activist and Thinker. Vancouver: Greystone Books.
Suzuki, D. (1997). The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. Vancouver: Greystone Books.
Worster, D. (1993). The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and Ecological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.